Imperial Portraits Research Articles

Göktepe Marble Identification in the Hadrian Portrait of Los Torrejones (Yecla, Murcia) and some Considerations on the Presence of this Marble in Hispania

This work characterises the high-quality white marble used in the bust of Emperor Hadrian found in the Roman villa of Los Torrejones (Yecla, Murcia). The analytical results, compared with the databases pertaining to Hispanic and Mediterranean quarry marbles, reveal its source in the quarries of Göktepe, in Muğla province, Western Turkey. The historical implications of the presence in the villa of an imperial portrait of such quality are discussed. The results also emphasise the importance of undertaking future complete archaeometric analysis of marble materials used in the sculptures of Hispania, only way to certify the provenance of the stone and, in this case, to better understand the distribution reached by the varieties of Göktepe marble in the Iberian Peninsula.

Imperial Influence and Innovation: The Good Emperors and The Bronze Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius

Roman portraiture provides insight into the ways in which political and social ideologies of the imperial dynasties manifested in imagery. Such iconography legitimized emperors' authority by simultaneously cultivating a visual connection to past leaders and promoting the agenda of the contemporary dynasty. While drawing upon the symbolism of previous sovereigns and establishing iconographic elements materialized within dynastic imagery, it is also evident in the representations of individual emperors. This paper explores the presence of influence and innovation within the imperial representation of the Good Emperors and focuses on examining the Bronze Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius. It highlights the evolution of imperial portraiture within the adoptive succession of the Good Emperors and how such imagery successfully perpetuated values of social welfare, military dominance, and intellectual growth and served to reinforce the continuity of this dynasty. Moreover, through a comprehensive analysis of the sculpture of Marcus Aurelius, it seeks to understand the symbolic significance of the monument with respect to the gestures, garb, and notable facial features associated with this emperor. This representation of Marcus Aurelius embodies the essence of influence and innovation as he is depicted in a manner congruent with that of his predecessors and revolutionizes the incorporation of insight into the psychological state of a Caesar.

A Multianalytical Approach to Identifying the White Marbles Used in Roman Imperial Sculptures from Tarraco (Hispania)

A selection of the most outstanding white marble sculptures from Tarraco has been archaeometrically studied to know more about the marble sources and their respective artistic workshops. All are imperial portraits of the 2nd century AD (Trajan, Hadrian, Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius) and a thoracata bust assigned to Hadrian, found on display at the National Archaeological Museum of Tarragona (MNAT). The well-established multimethod approach, combining petrography, cathodoluminescence, C and O isotopes and Sr and Mn trace element composition, has revealed the use of different very fine- to fine-grained marbles of the highest quality exploited in classical times. In contrast to what was thought until now, in which all the pieces had been assigned to Luni-Carrara, this present study identifies the use of two varieties of the recently discovered site of Göktepe near Aphrodisias and Paros-lychnites marbles, being Carrara, in minority. This study confirms the importance of strontium concentration and the contribution of cathodoluminescence to distinguish Göktepe from Carrara marble, while carbon and oxygen isotopes were crucial for the identification of Cycladic marble. Finally, in line with recent published interdisciplinary studies, the marble provenance forces us to rethink the discourse on the use of marble, its sculptural workshops and its distribution in this temporal context.

Speaking for and against the Imperial Portrait Statue in Late Antiquity: Libanius's Orations 19–22 and John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Statues (387 C.E.)

Abstract: In the city of Antioch-on-the-Orontes in 387 c.e., statues of the emperor Theodosius I and his family were destroyed by a crowd angered by a recent tax increase, resulting in a series of imperial punishments enacted upon the city. In the months after the event, two prominent residents, the pagan author Libanius and the Christian priest John Chrysostom, wrote (in the case of Libanius) and preached (in the case of Chrysostom) in response to the destruction of the statues and the ensuing punishments. This article focuses on the varied understandings of the power and presence of imperial portraits written into Libanius's and Chrysostom's texts. In contrast with Libanius's traditional understanding of the statue as a surrogate for the venerable subject it represented, Chrysostom instead argues that the living human is superior to the lifeless statue, as we are created "in the image of God" by the supreme artist himself. By marshaling Neoplatonic ideas and pagan critiques of statuary, as well as Christian doctrine, Chrysostom seeks to convince his congregants and later readers still attached to the imperial statue cult that the faithful, rather than graven images, are what matter. Writing in a period in which Christianity was ascendant, and in which some cult statues of the pagan gods were targeted for destruction, Chrysostom's homilies provide a unique window into late fourth-century conceptions of portrait statues, which though different from statues of divine subjects were potentially problematic sites of animation and veneration. Read closely against each other, Libanius's and Chrysostom's texts supplement our understanding of the factors behind the subsequent decline in the production and display of portrait statues, as well as changing ideas about three-dimensional representation in a Christian empire.

Imaging Hadrian in Britain between Coinage and Sculpture: A New Digital Approach to the Study of Roman Imperial Portraiture

AbstractThis paper presents a new approach to an old problem, the provincial reception of the image of Roman emperors. Applying 3D computer modelling, we captured the portrait features of Hadrian as represented on coinage minted for the British province, produced a 3D model from a coin and compared it with the bronze head of Hadrian found in London. The aim was to test the possibility, previously posited by other scholars, that the London portrait might have been produced by an artisan who used coin portraits of the emperor as his main – if not only – model. More generally, the paper examines the dependencies of coinage and sculpture on shared models and applies new technology to Roman portrait studies.

A computer vision-aided analysis of facial similarities in Song dynasty imperial portraits

Similarity between faces in portraiture is incredibly informative for art historical questions involving the sitter's identity, as well for setting a painting in its historical context to understand why someone was depicted a certain way. A set of royal portraits from Song dynasty, China, has been the subject of rich art historical scholarship. Here, I demonstrate the usefulness of computer vision-based quantitative metrics in complementing existing rich subjective evaluations. Working with the portrait set, I show that L2 distances generated by OpenFace support the accepted hypothesis that emperor Lizong is depicted in Listening to the Wind in the Pines. I then use the technique to gain insight into whether the zither player in Listening to the Zither resembles emperor Huizong and why that might be, as well as what degrees of similarity between emperor portraits in the set may mean in terms of metaphorical inclusion or exclusion from the lineage. I then extend discussions on metaphorical inclusion to women in this set by exploring spousal similarity. Fascinating mysteries surrounding posthumous portraiture float amidst confounding factors in the clouds of memory, and this study shows the promise of using computer vision-based techniques as complements to subjective analyses in exploring these mysteries.

A Re-evaluation of the So-Called Fulvia Coinage

It has long been debated whether portraits of the goddess Victory on a handful of coins dated to the triumviral period and minted in Rome, Gaul, Asia Minor, and North Africa portray the goddess in the likeness of Fulvia, wife of the triumvir Marcus Antonius. No one has yet laid out the basis for the whole argument one way or the other, despite the importance of these coins for our understanding of the development of Roman imperial portraiture, the relationship between provincial and imperial authorities following Caesar’s assassination, the extent of female involvement in triumviral politics and in statements of dynastic power, and Fulvia’s own role in setting precedents for the imperial women of Rome. This article reviews the claims made about the coins and the evidence on which they are based, concluding that there is no compelling reason to identify the woman on the coins as Fulvia.

Roman Imperial Portraits Dataset (ripd)

Abstract Portraits of the Roman emperors have been a focal point in the study of the ancient world. However, questions on how this medium developed over time and/or how perceptions of the emperor changed over more than four centuries of imperial rule, are constrained by the availability and accessibility of the material. This article introduces the Roman Imperial Portraits Dataset (ripd) to allow researchers to study the portraiture of Roman emperors through a more quantitative approach (Heijnen & Hekster, 2021). The dataset has systematically brought together more than 2,100 extant (i.e. published) portraits of the Roman emperors into a single dataset that can be used for further study. The article also introduces a web application with the aim to allow researchers and interested parties to work with the data(set) in an user-friendly manner.

The Imperial Portraits Ho-an-den of Former Hsin-Hua Ordinary Elementary School- Focusing on the Exploration of Imperial Rescript on Education

Hsin-hua Primary School, Hsin-hua District, Tainan City, Taiwan, was celebrating its 120th anniversary in 2017. The school was formerly known as the Tavocan branch of Tainan Institute of Japanese, founded in 1898 during the Japanese colonial rule. As part of its commemorative project, it has restored the Ho-an-den, a post-war Japanese period building with slogans on all four walls of the campus. Ho-an-den, commonly known as "imperial portraits Ho-an-den", was a building used to enshrine the portraits of contemporary emperors and empresses in schools and other educational institutions in Japan and its colonies, such as Taiwan and Korea, before the World War II. Although it is called "Imperial Portraits Ho-an-den", in general, except for "Imperial Portraits", A transcript of the imperial descript on education, the highest philosophy of education in pre-war Japan, will also be included. This Ho-an-den is one of the only two remaining in Taiwan. It is an important testimony of the Japanese rulers' emphasis on "emperor system" education. Keywords: Japanese colonial period in Taiwan, the imperial descript on education, imperial portraits, Ho-an-den.

Facial recognition as a tool to identify Roman emperors: towards a new methodology

Portraits of Roman emperors are traditionally recognised by their unique coiffure patterns, a method that runs the risk of ignoring portraits that do not cohere to the standardised image of the emperor. This article investigates whether it is possible to recognise and distinguish emperors using the facial features of their portraits. By using a technique called transfer learning, it utilises existing deep-learning facial recognition models, augmented with images of Roman imperial portraits, to provide a new empirical foothold in the debate of Roman emperor recognition. The results of the experiments demonstrate that by only a limited amount of training, such a so-called “pre-trained” model (i.e., InceptionResnet-V1) is able to correctly classify most images in the dataset of Roman emperors. As such, this article has made a first step towards applying facial recognition models to the study of ancient imperial portraiture.

A NEW PERIOD PROPOSAL FOR PUBLISHED FEMALE PORTRAIT

Due to the similarity of the hairdressing fashion on female head with the portraits of Domitia Longina written by J. Inan and E. A. Rosenbaum who have important studies about Roman imperial portrait art, Flavian Dynasty period was proposed directly. In the study in 1979, no typological distinction was made among the portraits of Domitia Longina and Domitia Longina portraits were limited to the Flavian Dynasty. Hairdressing fashion in the form of a spongy mass of hair, which is very important in identifying and dating this period, also looks like a wreath-like hair mass in Istanbul piece. This hair style is not similar to the hairdressing fashion of the portraits of Iulia Titi and Domitia Longina during the Flavian Dynasty. It is similar to the portraits of Domitia Longina in IIIrd type who was honoured after the Flavian Dynasty and of whom portraits were made with new hair fashion. Although this new hair fashion, which is dated to Nerva - Early Traianus period, is reminiscent of the Flavian Dynasty in essence, this hairdressing fashion in which the hair tresses are portraited more exaggerated should be dated after the Flavian Dynasty. Key Words: Portrait, Domitia Longina, IIIrd type, Nerva - Early Traianus period

An Imperial Portrait Cameo of Antonia Minor in a 14th-Century Reliquary Cross in Prague

The present study explores a little-studied and reinterpreted early Roman Imperial cameo depicting Antonia Minor (36 bc–ad 37), which came into the possession of the Holy Roman emperor, Charles IV of Luxembourg (1316–78), a collector of ancient gems. It was presumably by his order that the ancient cameo was set in a splendid gold reliquary cross which he commissioned after his imperial coronation to house relics of the True Cross. Thus, in the new setting, the cameo could be perceived as the divine Antonia Minor; Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, who allegedly discovered the True Cross; or Saint Catherine, Charles’ heavenly protectress. The cross is today preserved in the Treasury of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague.

The Face of an Empire: Cosmetics and Whiteness in Imperial Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I

When Queen Elizabeth I entered her fifties, she grew reluctant to sit for any more portraits. The final three portraits that she sat for – the Armada Portrait, The Ditchley Portrait, and the Oliver Miniature – painted between the mid-1580s and her death in 1602, portray the Queen with a smooth, white face, and bright coral lips and cheeks. The style of painting the Queen’s face as seen in these last portraits were canonized as a pattern for future artists to follow when painting the Queen during and after the last years of her reign. In the Elizabethan era, the English government often attempted to control how the Queen was depicted in artwork; in 1596 the English Privy Council drafted a proclamation that required portraits of the Queen depict her as “beutyfull [sic] and magnanimous” as “God hathe blessed her.” In both art historical scholarship and popular culture, the Queen’s whitened skin and rouged lips and cheeks in her official portraiture are often cited as evidence of her vanity and waning looks. However, as I will explore in this paper, the use of cosmetics in the early-modern era was associated not only with narcissism, but with England’s colonial efforts. By considering discourses regarding both her status as a symbol of natural beauty and the racist associations that were associated with makeup application, I argue that the legibility of makeup on the Queen’s face in imperial portraits and preservation of this motif as a pattern can be read as a symbol of her imperial and racial domination in the Americas and in England.

Sex and Power in Cassius Dio’s Roman History

Abstract This article contributes to our understanding of Dio’s technique of using sexual discourse as a useful tool of characterisation and ethical and historical interpretation. It also aims to advance our understanding of the role of sexual-moral critique in ancient historiography more generally. In the first part, it argues that comments on sexual matters in Dio’s history contribute to the construction of imperial portraits and the evaluation of an emperor. Sexual transgressions regularly coalesce with other bad characteristics of a ruler and his overall tyrannical behaviour. In the second part it is suggested that Dio’s representation of Elagabalus is considerably peculiar in terms of both its narrative technique and content, including themes and stories that unfold in significantly different and unexpected ways. Sexual misconduct is not simply associated with other vices, but is also used as a significant stand-alone category in the historian’s assessment of Elagabalus’ character and reign. This understanding of Dio’s technique, it is proposed, makes not only a historiographical point, but also a significant historical one about Elagabalus, his rule, and the state of the Roman Empire at the time.

Jahāngīrī portrait shasts: Material-discursive practices and visuality at the Mughal court

By the early seventeenth century, artists in the Mughal atelier were producing portrait shasts (turban ornaments or pendants) featuring the likeness of the emperor Jahāngīr. These were distributed by the Mughal sovereign in gifting ceremonies and worn by imperial officials and European diplomats. Though artists drew inspiration from European cameos, the bust format took on new meanings and functions within the context of South Asian socio-political, artistic, and religious traditions. Given the indexicality and animacy of gifted imperial portraits, a shast was both a symbol of bureaucratic status and a material embodiment of royalty. As diplomatic gifts, art objects, and imperial icons, shasts took part in the Mughal visual regime as well as material-discursive practices that constituted human identity. An examination of the ‘intra-action’ between Jahāngīr, his portrait shast, and its bearer reveals the agentive capacity of the gifted royal portrait.

Imperial Portraiture and Popular Print Media in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

Imperial Portraiture and Popular Print Media in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

Ícones 'versus' retratos imperiais nos 'Três tratados apologéticos contra a condenação das imagens sagradas', de João Damasceno: um debate sobre o sagrado e a autoridade política

O presente artigo pretende discutir os Três tratados apologéticos contra a condenação das imagens sagradas escritos por João Damasceno, procurando analisar suas obras a partir de uma percepção política, no intuito de demonstrar como o monge, por um lado, defende as imagens sagradas e critica a figura imperial por esta última ter instituído a iconoclastia e, por outro, legitima o imperador, sua imagem e seu poder como tal. Para tanto, faremos um panorama geral da eclosão da crise iconoclasta, para, em seguida, tratar das funções dos retratos imperiais para, por último, analisarmos as passagens dos textos de Damasceno relativas aos argumentos utilizados para defender os ícones e a autoridade imperial bizantina.

A New Roman Provincial Coin from Pella

The purpose of this article is to present a unique bronze coin of the Roman colony of Pella in Macedonia that was discovered during excavations of the Aristotle University at Dion. The coin belongs to a so-far unpublished issue and bears a female head on the obverse and a standing Pan on the reverse. The article discusses the iconographic types, the denomination and the dating of this issue that does not bear an imperial portrait. A dating in the 3rd century AD is suggested for its production.

Mediating presence: curtains in Middle and Late Byzantine imperial ceremonial and portraiture

Curtains constituted a standard component of the scenography of imperial ceremonies during the Middle and Late Byzantine period. This paper explores how curtains were used to control and ritualise sensory and perceptual access to the sacred person of the emperor and to manipulate emotive response to ritual performances. It also enquires into the way in which curtains, both as material objects and as symbols, were employed by those staging imperial ceremonies in order to articulate and communicate messages regarding the nature of the emperor's authority and his special status vis-à-vis his subjects. Paradoxically, the performative and symbolic potential that ensured the curtains’ use in imperial ceremonies led to their exclusion from the representation of the emperor in imperial portraiture, since post-Iconoclastic art did not admit veiled secrets.

植民地朝鮮の「御真影」 : 初等教育機関の場合

植民地朝鮮の「御真影」 : 初等教育機関の場合